An elementary school teacher who questioned a California school’s spending $250,000 on a teacher training program called “Woke Kindergarten” was placed on leave Thursday by his school district, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Glassbrook Elementary School used $250,000 in federal funds for underperforming schools to pay for training for teachers on how to be “anti-racist” and “disrupt whiteness” in the classroom. Now, the school district, Hayward Unified School District, has put teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley on leave for “allegations of unprofessional conduct” after he questioned the program, according to the Chronicle.
Craven-Neeley was told via a video call that he was being put on leave and ordered to turn in his keys and laptop, he told the Chronicle.
Craven-Neeley said he had voiced concerns over the program Wednesday at a staff meeting after the Chronicle last week ran an article that included his comments questioning the purpose of the program. After a short while, another teacher stood up, pointed a finger at him, and said, “You are a danger to the school or the community,” then stormed out, he told the Chronicle.
Shortly afterward, a school district administrator asked Craven-Neeley to leave the meeting, the Chronicle reported.
In comments to the Chronicle for a Feb. 3 article on “Woke Kindergarten,” Craven-Neeley questioned what it meant to “disrupt whiteness” in the classroom.
“What does that mean?” Craven-Neeley told the Chronicle. “I just want to know, what does that mean for a third-grade classroom?”
Scores for English and math at Glassbrook Elementary have fallen since the program’s implementation, with fewer than 4% of students posting proficient scores in math and a little under 12% testing at grade level in English. These were decreases of nearly 4 percentage points since “Woke Kindergarten” started at the school.
Neither Glassbrook Elementary nor the Hayward School District responded immediately to requests for comment.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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